Welcome lively viewers to Vegetarian Elite. On today’s program, we are honored to feature the elegant and multi-talented American performing artist Ms. Trina Parks. An actress, vocalist, choreographer, dancer, and dance lecturer, Ms. Parks has mastered all these arts to perfection using her God-given gifts and extraordinary perseverance.

My name is Trina Parks and I was the first African American bond girl/villain, my character was Thumper. And I am a strict vegetarian, strict vegan, and I just love that you have Supreme Master Television, because I am definitely going to watch it, because I agree with that. As a vivacious actress with a unique presence, Ms. Parks has appeared in TV specials with the famous American actors Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

She is perhaps most praised and remembered until today for making cinematic history as the first African-American woman featured in a James Bond film - “Diamonds Are Forever” starring Scottish actor Sean Connery. Born to dance, Ms. Parks has mastered multiple dance styles and traveled the world as the lead performer with a number of prestigious dance companies. Equally at ease as a creator of dances, she choreographed the 1975 Tony Award-winning musical “The Wiz,” starring American superstar singers Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.

On top of it all, Ms. Parks has been a vegetarian, and now a vegan, for over 34 years! Although having passed on when Ms. Parks had just been born, her mother, an interior decorator, had somehow intuitively known that her unborn daughter would become a performing artist. Ms. Parks’ father was a great jazz musician who was constantly on tour, yet made the time to instill in Ms. Parks knowledge that would bring to life her mother’s words.

You’re a multi-talented artist sensation, an actress, vocalist, choreographer, principal dancer and dance instructor. You grew up with a famous saxophonist father, and graduated from the New York High School of Performing Arts, with a major in Modern Dance with the Martha Graham Technique. Do you consider yourself born to be a performer? Because you’re certainly talented.

Well, actually it was so funny because I was told by my aunt that my mother said that I was going to be a performer.

Really?

And I actually found this out in my adult life, it had to be maybe 25 years ago, she told me this.

Wow.

You’ve worked with a lot of different dance companies as a principal dancer. How do you describe your evolution as a dancer through these many experiences?

Oh my gosh, it was so many – starting out at the High School of Performing Arts. I did my audition for the High School of Performing in New York. But I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to do this dance or not, because ironically, I also applied for the Bronx High School of Science.

Just two completely separate careers.

Completely separate. I was very good in getting projects together. Terrible in math, but I just was good in science. I just applied for all these three schools and all that I was accepted in the Bronx High School of Science. I obviously was accepted in High School of Performing Arts and then they asked me to come back and do the dance again. Anyway, that’s how it all started, in the school. I had the most wonderful teachers, a Martha Graham teacher. One was Norman Walker, who was in her company, and met one of her dancers in the ’50s.

Celebrated American choreographer Ms. Martha Graham developed a dance technique that went beyond the tradition of classical ballet and pioneered the field of modern dance. Mr. Norman Walker is another choreographer with a living legacy. Ms. Trina Parks learned from the best of the best.

Martha Graham used to come to the school periodically and teach Helen Tamaris who was in her company, was one of our guest teachers, and I ended up being a soloist in at my senior year, doing her. “Negro Spiritual,” she choreographed way back in late ’30s. I was chosen to do “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” And they’re on reel in Performing Arts Library in New York. And it started that thing going for me, because from there, I met Pearl Lang. I used to go to the Graham School in New York. Sometimes after school I would take classes at the Graham School down in the village in New York, and I also started to going to Katherine Dunham school, which was a completely different technique.

Sounds like you’ve worked very hard in your area.

Oh then, I was all about dance. I was all about dance.

Ms. Parks shares some of her memorable and humorous moments of performing live on stage, tales that reveal her winning spirit.

I was with the Chester Whitmore Dance, Black Ballet Dance Company. We were touring Europe, this was around the ’80s. I was wearing high heels for the number that I was doing. It was my solo song and dance number, so I sprained my ankle. But anyway, I came out on stage hopping…

(Oh my goodness!)

with a cast on and I kind of stood there. I sat on the edge of the stage and I did the whole dance sitting on edge of stage. I was doing “What’s Love Got To Do with It.” And then I thought if I go downside and I lifted the leg up like that, and go like that, and the crowd was just roaring.

The show must go on (Oh, absolutely.) was really true.

But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale

I came on with “Minnie the Moocher.” And then all of a sudden the music stopped. I kept going, now you’re talking about 3,000 or more people. Now they know backstage that something was going on with the music and they’re like “Oh my gosh.” I kept singing louder and louder. The man in the booth, and the whole audience, I mean they were just clapping, I mean I didn’t do, I just kept going. I mean, what are you going do, stand, “Okay, where’s the music?” No, there an audience there. So I was just kept going and going and louder and louder and I got to the right very end section of the song and the music came back on and I was right on

on to the music; I surprised myself. But, I was, “Oh God, I thank you God,” and I got a standing ovation. I was so happy, I just almost clapped myself, you know when I was leaving.

That’s amazing! I always feel that the true singer really doesn’t need music, because your voice is the music itself, isn’t?

Yeah, that’s right, that’s so true. And I’ve done live Broadway, and the theatre and all, and you project because you know how to breathe anyway from my dancing experience, in the beginning of dancing. We’re breathing from your abdomen, stomach here, all through and it helps in your singing, and so this is what I have been trained to do for years before. So you project to the last person in the audience, so that’s what I did.

Ms. Parks accredits a part of her natural abilities to her talented father, Mr. Charles Frazier, a jazz musician who performed with the legendary Duke Ellington and also played lead sax for the famous Cab Calloway Orchestra. When her father took young Trina to her first piano lesson when she was nine years old, little Trina jumped up from the bench and started to dance instead of staying seated to practice the piano! Needless to say, dancing came very naturally to her from the very beginning.

My father was in Chicago with Cab’s band when I was born. He taught me so very much about loving, and he’s a musician. And he was, I mean he’s been around everything – he played with Cab Calloway, Jimmy Lunsford before that, Chris Calloway back in the ’30s and ’40s. But he knows all these people, you know, singers, Don Washington, played at the Apollo several times.

And he taught me to be very humble. Daddy didn’t smoke. And he taught me those values – the values of being honest, being straight-forward with people. I knew all kinds of music, because he taught music. He taught classical music, because he played the flute, he played all the wind instruments. He ate healthy. He did. And he was so much an influence to me, character-wise. He loved children, and he loved animals.

Ms. Parks is indeed “like father like daughter” in more than a few ways.

Absolutely. I love animals. I’ve always had cats, a lot of cats. I love all animals. I get along with them really well. I think that they’re like children, they are innocent creatures, and they’re loving unless they have a master that makes them not. I think that they are in most cases, they are, and they could be wonderful, wonderful companions. Especially like those people in hospitals and all, you can see how they even have animals come to hospitals, and do that, and befriend the people in the hospital, just the senior citizens and all.

When did you become a vegetarian and why?

I’ve been a vegetarian since ‘76. I met someone that was really way before his time. He was into the raw, whole thing, back in the ’70s. And he started to educate me about meats, and would give me a book to read: when they do kill the animals, what animal’s poisons get into each one and diseases of other fish. So I would say in ’76, I weaned off of all meats, and then last was fish.

And what change have you noticed becoming a vegetarian?

I feel lighter. It’s a whole other body feeling – you don’t feel sluggish. I didn’t really eat that much meat even before, fortunately. And I remember when I was doing this at Broadway, I was eating a hamburger. And that hamburger did something, it just messed my stomach up. I was thinking about it, “Oh, you know, this stuff, I don’t need this.” My breakfast, I have all organic foods, but I’ll have organic cereal and I drink soy milk because I don’t drink dairy.

No dairy And, I’ll have blueberries and cranberries and peaches in my cereal in the morning. At 5, after teaching, I’ll eat, maybe at 6, maybe 7 something. And I have veggie burger, some greens, I love collard greens. I don’t eat any fried foods. Veggie franks, I get them at the health food store. Veggie chili. Everything that’s to me are natural, coming from the earth, coming from nature all round, is the most healthy for you as a human.

Delightful viewers, this concludes today’s edition of Vegetarian Elite. Please join us again next Saturday, February 26 to find out more about the vibrant life and dazzling career highlights of the gorgeous vegan performance artist Ms. Trina Parks. She’ll share more about her thoughts on her plant-strong diet, what it was like being in a James Bond film, her spiritual outlook, and her work to inspire the next generation of performers.

What goes in, always shows on your face. A lot of people that have problems with their skin and all. It’s what they eat, you know, a lot of what they eat, most of the time. If you’re in line in your life with good spirit and God-like qualities, you’ll bring that to you and it will show through your body, through your face and through your actions and all that. And that’s the way I, I like to be.

Thank you for your pleasant company today. Coming up next is Between Master and Disciples, here on Supreme Master Television. May your inner beauty and grace shine forward to illuminate the world.